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What about on a home page, say you have a 'welcome' paragraph followed by a brief 'what we do' paragraph which would link to a what we do page.

The titles of both are equally important from an accessibility point of view and semantically, I would give them both an H1 tag.

Would you try to avoid using two H1 tags? If so, why?

I wouldn't do it - H1 represents the main title of the page, and a page should only have one main title. In the case you describe, I would use h1 for the main title, in this case the name of your company probably. I'd then use h2s for "welcome" and "what we do". To me, the definition of an h1 tag excludes its use more than once on a page - if you feel you need more than one h1 tag, they should be h2s, with a more general page title as h1. Alternatively, as mentioned above, the page should be split into two, with each one having the respective title in h1.

I wouldn't do it - H1 represents the main title of the page, and a page should only have one main title. In the case you describe, I would use h1 for the main title, in this case the name of your company probably. I'd then use h2s for "welcome" and "what we do". To me, the definition of an h1 tag excludes its use more than once on a page - if you feel you need more than one h1 tag, they should be h2s, with a more general page title as h1. Alternatively, as mentioned above, the page should be split into two, with each one having the respective title in h1.

Thanks for the answer.

I've yet to get an answer to the question of whether or not it causes SEO problems though, which is the reason I brought this up.

I couldn't tell you for 100&#37; sure, but I'd say 99% no. However, when I say no problems, I mean it will give you no negative effects - it doesn't mean your maximising the positive benefits of your tags. The reason I say no negative effects, is because a casual site owner who doesn't care too much about semantic code etc., could easily use multiple H1s with no intention of SE manipulation. It wouldn't be in a SEs interest to penalise for this, although obviously many many H1s, crammed with keywords would be penalised.
The problem with multiple H1s IMO is that it's diluting one of the most important on-site ranking elements. Two H1 tags means twice as many keywords in H1, so half as much importance assigned to each keyword. It's the same effect as having long URLs with many phrases in them - it dilutes the importance of each one. So your best option is to have two pages where appropriate, and let each page take the task of ranking for its specific keywords, and you stand the best chance of doing well for all the keywords you want to rank for.

Will google pay attention to the H1 tag of a page or the page title (i.e. within <title></title>) ???

Edit:

I know it pays attention to both --- But which one carries more weight?

Nobody outside of Google (or any other search engine for that matter) knows for certain, and those who do know aren't talking, so why bother speculating?

Originally Posted by C. Ankerstjerne

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

Who are you putting first, yourself or your users?

In case you are responding to my post, I'm not quite sure I follow you?

From a philosophical point of view, I am of course putting myself first. If I was not, I would not be interested in being successful, and thus would not have to make as good a user experience as possible, in order to get more users.

Actually it wasn't in response to your earlier post (but the quotation got included with yours for the sake of clarity in this post), it was a reply to JJMcClure's. But since you decided to bite, I'll explain. You (and I'm using this word in the general sense here, not "you" personally) should put your users first every single time. Especially if you want to be successful, since the users are the ones who will be determining whether or not you are successful in the end, not you (again, I say "you" here in the general sense of the word). Besides, nobody wants to be the next Courtney Love, anyway (especially with her "forget you/me first" attitude). Yeah, she may have the money (ok, so it was Kurt Cobain's money), but does anybody really like her? And would anyone really want to be in her position anyway? I know I don't (which is why I make every effort to put others first). Give a little, get a lot. Give a lot, get a lot more.

Overuse of H1 tags doesnt help you in any case. From my experience, it is better if you forget search engines and concentrate on usability. Tested with header tags in the past, but it didnt seem to make much of a difference.

Dan
I think you're missing my point here. I'm not saying that my users aren't important. What I am saying, however, is that in business, one should always put oneself first.

When you put yourself first, you will always try to optimise your earnings to match what you want (which may not be making as much money as possible, but it might - it can also be to give the user the best user experience possible, but that is not a viable business model, and we then move into philanthropy).

Once the goal of the business is clear, it is then possible to set up a series of short- and long-term strategies, which should lead to desired goal. In a web business, this will probably involve optimising the user experience, including making the website semantical and accessible. Providing a good user experience and a semantical and accessible website is not really a goal in itself, though: every action has to serve a higher purpose, otherwise it's a waste of time and money.

As originally mentioned, this is quite philosophical, and for those in the industry who knows what they're doing, it's probably a subconscious thought process.